A proposed transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) between the European Union (EU) and the United States could influence China's economic growth directly and indirectly, Dutch central bank economist Piet Buitelaar told Xinhua recently.

With the agreement, the EU and the United States aim to remove trade barriers in a wide range of economic sectors to make it easier to buy and sell goods and services between the two sides.

The deal is expected to result in more jobs and economic growth for both the EU and the United States, but might also indirectly lead to less export growth in other areas in the world, experts feel.

"A reduction of non-tariff barriers lowers the costs for US-EU transactions, which implies less exports from China to these areas, " Buitelaar told Xinhua during a TTIP-conference held in Utrecht on Monday.

Another side effect of the TTIP for China might be that companies will need to raise their quality standard when it comes to labor issues, environmental law and food safety issues. According to Buitelaar, the consequences for China have been marginal so far, but the TTIP might change this.

"New rules will raise the threshold for Chinese companies to enter the EU and US markets," Buitelaar continued.

In addition, China and other countries might have difficulties in implementing the new TTIP rules and regulations, which could cause negative externalities.

A solution for countries that are strongly affected by the outcomes of the TTIP negotiations is that they would be involved in the talks.

But so far that does not seem to happen. Even European and American NGO's, parliamentarians and citizens have continuously expressed the feeling that the negotiation process has been far from transparent.